Existential Threat: Chapter 16 Part 1 of 2 (Patreon)

Chapter 16:

11/07/2242

Nothing moved in the town. A collection of buildings made from trees and the compressed waste material blocks.

Just like the others.

A dirt path weaved through the forest up to the main road.

Luke shifted his rifle over his left knee, right hand on the pistol grip as he scanned the buildings. Movement in one, a window banging in the wind. He grimaced, the nukes and impactors were playing hell with the wind.

They advanced through the forest, away from the road.

Natural caves ran under the entire area, caves the Lur had made great use of.

“Something is telling me that there are people down there but I couldn’t tell you where,” Moose was crouched on the other side of Fin, lying in the mud, looking at the village, his rifle on a rock.

“I will go in first with my people. They will be less worried,” Ken said on Luke’s left.

Luke nodded, shifting his bulk to focus on Ken.

“Alright, we’ll be here if you need help, keep in contact.” He tapped his left ear.

“Yes leader Luke.”

Ken moved away towards his people waiting back from the rise.

“Leader Luke,” Fin said, focused on scanning the town.

Luke made a grumbling noise. The Orkaran fighters with their Sphere World Armor and weapons moved through the forest with ease. They stopped before the tree-line ended, Ken calling out.

He did it twice more, someone yelled back, having a quick conversation.

Several parts of the ground rose up, shedding their cover, Orkaran’s wearing ponchos.

“IR and sensor bouncing sheeting,” Moose said.

“They’ve been dealing with Aer using the same gear as us, makes sense they’d find something to spoof them,” Luke said as he pulled the video information and snapshots of the material, sending it to the engineers.

Up-armored movers rode down the road as doors opened, families with packs, usually cloth bundles tied with homemade rope.

They shut doors as Ken sent off people in armor with those in ponchos, leaving the town and heading into the forest.

“We are ready to move to the next settlement leader Luke,” Ken said over the radio, waving them forward.

“Lets move up ladies and gents,” Luke said over command chat.

Echo through Hotel rose from their positions, moving down to the settlement.

The Orkaran’s moved away subconsciously as those with the movers waved them forward, helping them into the back where raw materials usually went, families huddled together, holding their home-made weapons.

Luke turned away and walked up to Ken and people from the settlement.

“These hunters will work with us, I have sent off some of our people and their hunters through the paths to the caves and settlements where people might be located. My fighters will tell me what the situation is through your radio,” Ken said.

“I’m not a fan of sending people out there without a breathing system, those spores get inside you for too long,” Luke trailed off at Ken’s grimace.

“As one that spat up the black grime I do not either, but they know the paths better than any. Where they are going others may have breathed it in already.”

Luke nodded. “Foxtrot, get a repeater up on that building.”

“Yes boss.”

“Alright Ken, where are we going next?” Luke projected the map between everyone, those in the settlement backing up, holding weapons tighter.

Ken checked the map, looked at where they came from and into the forest.

“This here,” He tapped the map, Luke added a marker.

“Alright everyone, form up at the edge of the town move out in five.”

The last few Orakaran boarded the movers, the first slowly climbing back up to the main road.

“Repeater up!”

Two of those around the map started coughing and hacking, going to their knees as they huffed up Adraxi spores, a black gunk.

One shivered and fell to their side. Ken moved to them and put them into the recovery position, clearing out their mouth with a finger.

“What did you do to our people?” One snarled, holding up his rifle.

“That’s the purple fog, the poison, they are clearing it from your bodies.” Ken stood.

“They’re Aer.” Ken smacked the man’s rifle down, it went off, everyone tensed at the shot as Ken tore the rifle from the man’s grip, making him nearly fall on the ground.

“You think my word is useless, you say I lie?” Ken stepped forward.

“I say you up in that mining facility licking Aer-“ Ken punched the rifle in his hands into the hunter’s face, he reeled back, hands going to his face as Ken grabbed the rifle in two hands, swinging it like a bat into the man’s side.

He folded and dropped to the ground, Ken hitting him in the head once more.

“Judge my life if you are me, no other might.”

The Orkaran mewled in pain, curled up around his head and side.

“I will not judge you and yours if you do not judge me and mine. We have many to help and not time to do it in. We have no time for this. You either help or I will shoot you for wasting the time that we might help others.” Ken threw the rifle to the side.

A hunter stepped forward.

“I’ll guide you, I have family in the next settlement.”

“I will go with you too.”

One that had been coughing out the black grim rose to his feet. “I’ll go as well.”

“You are brave to do so, but the fog takes much out of us. Go back, help with the mining facility, get armor and weapons,” Ken patted his chest. “Then join us.”

He stepped forward to argue, another pulled him back with a shake of his head.

“I listen.” He tilted his head slightly.

“Thank you,” Ken nodded.

He looked back at Luke, sharing a nod, recognizing how he was ready to step in.

Luke nodded back. “Lets get moving.”

Those heading back to the facility helped up the one who’d been beaten with his gun, getting him onto a mover.

Luke glanced back as they left the settlement, one Orkaran had painted messages on two walls. It was as silent as when they’d first arrived, but now his mind told him it was eerily empty.

How many more people would he take from their homes. How many would ever be able to return?

He drank the stim-drink from his tube, shifting in his net suit as he moved with the rest of his squads at their ground-eating lope.

***

The bridge was silent in vacuum, lights flickering from displays, rail cannons and accelerator rails hurling orbital impactors and dropships on curving lines to Orkana below.

Dana stood infront of her chair manipulating the hologram. The northern harvester was half-surrounded by green.

“Fire request from Foster! Altering firing algorithms,” Leblanc said.

Trajectory lines shifted, focusing on the northern harvester as ships fired in series, a rain of metal heading for the planet.

A-bombs were loaded and ready within the missile tubes.

Dana watched the rounds pass into atmosphere, the other harvesters and defense stations engaged, but it wasn’t enough as the rounds swept over the horizon.

The harvester put up a furious fight, but it had been wounded by the ground forces, its inter-linked defenses wiped out.

Dana jumped into the view of a tank commander, the tank jumped as it fired into the sea of Adraxi fighting from prepared positions. Artillery held at bay by the harvester now pounded on their lines, their booms drowned out by the thunder of passing hypersonic rounds.

The rounds moved so fast the material of the harvester acted as if it was a liquid, melting part of the round.

Detonations started several meters inside the harvester, sections simply disappeared as nuclear blooms created pillars in the sky.

[Victory]

[You have Captured Orkana-Harvester Three]

Rounds continued to pound the Harvester and area around it. Dust, dead ADraxi an their broken defenses started to rise, the firebases’ command posts stopping them from recovering.

Dana jumped out of the tank commander’s view. The green tide surged around the Harvester, spreading down the coasts.

“A-bombs away,” Leblanc said.

“How is the next wave looking?” Dana turned to Ayambe.

“Five minutes till they enter atmosphere.”

“Thank you,” Dana pinched the hologram, zooming out over the planet.

Several ‘stations’ now orbited the planets. Frieighters dumped off their containers that were unloaded or shipped by shuttle to the fleets. The empty containers were then secured together to make the offloading stations.

Dropships landed and loaded bots from the stations, taking the strain off of the carriers. Returning only if they needed repairs.

It saved them having to unload the freighters, load them onto carriers and then load them into dropships, increasing the number of ships launched in each wave.

As soon as the freighters were unloaded they accelerated towards the nearest Lagrange point, saving the time that they’d need to load up empty containers.

She took in a breath and let it out. “We changed most of our rail cannons to hellbores. Great for space combat, not so much for ground combat.”

“Have to deal with the lensing affect of firing through atmosphere and a lot of it,” Leblanc agreed.

“Convert more of them back to rail cannons?”

“It’d definitely help,” Leblanc half-shrugged. “I’m mostly worried about that pocket there.” She circled the Drop-Carrier and southern Harvester.

“We haven’t been able to punch a damn thing through there, of course Ichika and Luke got themselves pinned in a valley with the southern-most harvester.”

“Dropships are landing at drop-point Alpha,” Ayambe said.

The funnel of dropships, spread out moving to landing zones. “Bet Sally’s feeling the strain unscrambling that mess,” Leblanc muttered.

“Hundred and twenty thousand dropships and climbing are under the Adraxi guns,” Ayambe said.

“Three complete Armies,” Dana nodded. Two and a half million troops, with their tanks, heavies and support squads. Against seven and a half billion Adraxi and climbing.